CALAIS — A violent storm ripped a late-afternoon path from Worcester to Woodbury Sunday, felling trees, downing power lines and temporarily closing a handful of roads around central Vermont.

On County Road in Maple Corner, strong winds took down a giant old maple tree just past the intersection with the Worcester Road, dragging down wires and killing power in the area.

Just a tenth of a mile away, a pair of downed trees cut off through-traffic on the Worcester Road between Calais and Worcester.

Torrential rains fell on Barre for a short while and neighboring communities including Plainfield, where at least one power outage was reported, and Marshfield.

“This is the kind of summer-type thunderstorm activity that happens when you have real warm, humid conditions,” Worcester meteorologist Roger Hill said Sunday evening.

Hill said the downing of large trees indicated winds in excess of 45 miles per hour, and he said he’d seen reports of the storm producing three-quarter inch hail as it passed through Underhill earlier in the afternoon.

Most dangerously, according to Hill, was the cloud-to-ground lightning activity that accompanied the fierce winds and torrential rains.

Hill said people need to remain on alert as warm, humid conditions forecast through the rest of the week will be a recipe for similar storms.

“Just about every day has a chance for more thunderstorm activity, so folks need to be cautious about lightning, and being caught in one of these thunderstorms that can produce fierce lightning, especially if you’re caught out on the lake,” Hill said. “Folks need to practice their lightning safety, or else they could be putting themselves in a very dangerous situation.”